Quote for the Day

"Doing nothing for others is the undoing of ourselves."

~Horace Mann

My Life

Last week it was a conference at Duke Divinity School entitled, "Making Peace with the Land."  This week it's the "Goat Day Symposium" at Virginia Tech.  Someone recently said I lead a very interesting life.  I suppose I do.

Farm Friday

This week I don't have a photo to show, but I wanted to share a little discovery.  One day, while picking up twigs that had fallen from the trees in our front yard, I discovered a small disk, about 3-4 inches across, on the ground that appeared to be made of natural materials.  Upon close inspection, I realized it was woven from the fur of our Great Pyrenees guard dog Joey and hair from our resident horse Rowan.  Apparently, some bird had chosen those materials to begin weaving a nest.  Only the bottom section had been completed before a gust of wind had carried it out of the tree and onto the ground.  I'm sure that bird quietly began a new nest, not giving any thought to the previous attempt.  It's amazing how nature can use the simplest materials to create wondrous things.  

Wellness Wednesday

Something to think about:

Un Peu d'Amusement

Quote for the Day

"We are too ready to retaliate...

Force may subdue,

but love gains.

And the one that forgives first,

wins the laurel."

~William Penn

Choices

Source

Paper or plastic?  Choices - sometimes they're maddening, especially if you're trying to live an environmentally friendly, sustainable life.  Since we live out in the country, choices can be complicated.  

It is about 15 miles (a 30 minute trip, one way) to the closest city and about 65 miles (1 hour, 15 minutes) to the closest city large enough to support natural food stores.  So often my choices for shopping are 1) local but not organic or even "natural" and I have to burn some fossil fuel; 2) organic and/or natural but I must burn even more fossil fuel plus the money is spent outside of my community; or 3) internet shopping where I can get exactly what I want, delivered to my door by the post office, UPS, or Federal Express truck, all of which make deliveries in my community anyway so I don't burn any additional fossil fuel; however, the money spent goes far from my community.  All three choices, for the most part, involve products from overseas which are more likely than not made with slave labor.  And even when I do internet shopping, I have to consider whether it is best to purchase from a large corporation that gives deals, such as free shipping, or to buy from a small company or individual but have to pay the full cost of shipping.  But local grocery purchases typically involve buying at a large supermarket chain.  

It's not just shopping, either.  It's packaging and personal products and cooking utensils and preserving food....The list goes on and on.  

Some examples:

Pet food - I have to choose between what is available at our local pet supermarket, all of which is tested on animals, even the "natural" brands they carry.   Or I can purchase small bags of healthy brands I know aren't tested on animals at one of the health food stores 65 miles away.  Or I can purchase large bags of that same food via the internet; I can even have it set up for auto-ship.

Preserving food - I have to choose between freezing or canning.  If I freeze, I have to either have enough large-mouth canning jars to fit everything in or I have to use plastic freezer bags that I can either discard when I'm done or wash and save to reuse the following year or for other projects.   If I tried to can food, I would have to set aside a good amount of time, boil a large quantity of water, and keep my fingers crossed that I know what I'm doing and the seal will take and I won't poison my family.

Plastic - earlier this week I wrote about BPA.  Much of the plastic in my kitchen probably contains BPA.  If I replace all of my storage containers, drinking glasses, etc. with BPA-free, am I really helping myself or are the substitute materials just as bad?  Or I can replace everything with glass or stainless steel.  The problem with glass storage containers is that most of them come with, guess what, plastic lids.  And these lids not only come into contact with the food, they wear out over time.  The ones with glass lids don't seal well so don't travel well.  And if I were to replace everything with glass and/or stainless steel, where would I find these products - not locally, I'm sure.

Books - if I want a new (to me) book, I have several choices.  I can check out a book from our local library, burning fossil fuel to get there (we do have a bookmobile but I would still have to drive 5 miles for that).  I could purchase a new book at a bookstore, a 65 mile drive for me (we don't have a bookstore in town).  I could purchase a used book at our local thrift shop, but, again, I'm burning fuel to get there.  I could download a book from an online bookstore right to my e-reader, but the e-reader is made with conflict minerals and plastic, not to mention that soon the version I own will probably be obsolete, requiring the purchase of a new e-reader.  Or I can download an e-book from one of the libraries that I have cards for, but I still have the e-reader problem.  

So there's always a question about whether or not I'm doing the right thing.  But in the end that is also the answer:  It's important to make an effort to do the right thing, even when the choices aren't perfect.

Farm Friday

A few glimpses into life on the farm this week:

I moved, cleaned, and refilled a long-neglected bird feeder.  I've put it in a better location - just outside one of our windows (I took the photo through the window).  This little one was one of our first customers.

I've decided to experiment with creating my own sourdough bread starter.  The theory is that over the course of a week, I should capture some wild yeast.

This spider was fortunate to find itself in our house.  We do spider rescues whenever possible.  The only spiders I won't rescue are the poisonous kind.

Some of the expectant mama goats in our barn pasture.

It's hard to tell from this photo (I need a better camera) but the leaves are already changing!

Thoughts from a Modern Poet

Source

2 : 7 (Excerpt)
by Alta (Gerrey)*

loving your neighbor is all very fine when you have nice
neighbors.  this is why people choose the town they live in.
we all want nice neighbors.  it's the folks in the next town
who are the bad guys.  you'd be amazed at how citified folks
hate the people in the suburbs.  not the suburbs, the people
in them.  but they want us living next door?  i ask you.

& joan of arc was noisy.  she must have made a lousy neigh-
bor.  & jesus, giving everything away - & ghandi, a walking 
guilt trip.  some people make nicer neighbors than others.
but there you have it.  city planning.

funny how essays on politics, on war & peace, seem to talk
about love.


*Originally published in The Shameless Hussy, Essays and Poetry by Alta by Alta Gerrey

Wellness Wednesday

Source

The Journal of the American Medical Association published a report linking bisphenol A, commonly known as BPA, to childhood obesity.  The study showed that BPA occurred in higher levels in the urine of obese children.  Although eating habits and exercise clearly contribute to the obesity epidemic, BPA appears to be a contributing factor.  It seems that BPA acts like the hormone estrogen and can make fat cells bigger.  (A reminder:  the JAMA study did not research any other negative side effects of BPA.  BPA has been linked to cancer, birth defects, and cardiovascular disease, as well.)

However, before we push the burden of the obesity epidemic on the chemicals found in our food packaging, consider that some experts believe that the BPA found in higher quantities in urine might just function as a "marker." The presence of elevated levels of BPA might just indicate that the obese children consume more foods proceeded foods than normal weight children, hence the higher numbers.  (Go here to read an article about the study.)  

Although BPA has been banned in products such as sippy cups and baby bottles, it is still found in other types of food packaging and is used to line aluminium cans.  And children's toys, pacifiers, plates, and utensils can still be manufactured with BPA.  Further, sippy cups and baby bottles are now made of a different type of bisphenol.  My past research shows that another type of bisphenol has been substituted for the BPA in making the plastic beverage containers.   I question the wisdom of substituting one bisphenol for another.  Since BPA is detected in the urine of 93% of Americans, I wonder what levels of BPB (or BPZ or whatever bisphenol will become the common substitute for BPA) will be found in our urine in the future.  It is hard to imagine our world without plastic, but since the chemicals used to make plastics are now part of our bodies, it seems prudent to seek out products that don't contribute to our body burden, such as glass and stainless steel.  

(As a side note, it is interesting that China banned BPA in baby bottles before the FDA did. The European Union declared a ban two years ago and Canada considers BPA a toxic substance.  The FDA has stopped short of declaring a ban or rating BPA as toxic through its wording of the new food additive rules.  Read this article to see how, in abandoning the use of BPA, the FDA avoided the safety - and future liability - issue.) 

Poem: In the End

In the End
by Sara Sophia Mohr

In the end
you won't be known
for the things you did,
or what you built,
or what you said.

You won't even be known
for the love given
or the hearts saved,

because in the end you won't be known.

You won't be asked, by a vast creator full of light:
What did you do to be known?

You will be asked:  Did you know it,
this place, this journey?

What there is to know can't be written.
Something between the crispness of air
and the glint in her eye
and the texture of the orange peel.

What you'll want a thousand years from now is this:
a memory that beasts lake a heart-
a travel memory, of what it was to walk here,
alive and warm and textured within.

Sweet brightness, aliveness, take-me-now-ness that is life.

You are here to pay attention.  That is enough.

Unlimited Needs in a Limited World

This brief film shows what we're doing wrong with our economy and why it can't last.  But it also shows us there is hope.  



Just as certain segments of the population had (and still have) a hard time with the idea of global warming, many feel that peak oil is false and that concern for the environment is idolatry.  However, far from being a challenge to one's faith, recognizing the finite condition of the earth and caring for it and its resources honors the Creator.  And in caring for the environment, we also show our recognition that the earth belongs to future generations.  

Let's do life in a more sustainable way - it's our best hope.  

Quote for the Day

"You never change things by fighting the existing reality.  To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."

~Buckminster Fuller

Green Up Your Laundry

Source

Contrary to the advertisements on television and in magazines, washing and drying your clothes, sheets, and towels can be done in a sustainable way, without a lot of chemicals.  The main three ingredients people use to do laundry are:  1) detergent; 2) fabric softener; and 3) dryer sheets.   I already blogged here about eliminating harsh, chemical-laden detergent by making  environmentally friendly laundry soap with soap nuts.  

Fabric softeners, which can trigger allergy and asthma attacks, can be replaced with white vinegar.  This substitution is not only green, it's frugal.  I've never been a fan of fabric softener because I've never cared for the strong smell plus fabric softeners decrease the absorbency of towels.  About 1/2 cup of white vinegar should do the job.

Of course the most sustainable way to dry laundry - and to prevent static cling - is to air dry it.  However, not everyone has the time or space to hang out the laundry.  And if you live in a humid environment, line drying heavy things like towels and jeans is not always ideal because you can end up with items smelling of mildew.  

If you do need to use the dryer, static can be a problem.  I've discovered two options for reducing this static.  (Disclaimer:  I have not yet tried these methods but have read a variety of reviews recommending them and plan to try them in the future.)  One way is to use aluminum balls made out of...aluminum foil!  Ehow has very easy instructions here.  Once the balls are no longer effective, the foil can be recycled.  In fact, the balls can be made from used aluminum foil that has been carefully washed and dried after use in the kitchen.  Victoria of Green Idea Reviews gave this method a thumbs up.

The other green way to eliminate static is to use felted wool dryer balls.  These balls can be made with a combination of wool yarn, wool roving, and/or wool fabric scraps.  Ehow and Crunchy Betty both have good tutorials.  (Crunchy Betty even recycled a moth-eaten thrift-store find in her dryer balls.)   If you're not feeling crafty, you can buy hand-made balls on etsy.  Just do a search for "wool dryer balls." 

If you're not yet convinced to give up your favorite laundry detergent, fabric softener, or dryer sheets, check out the Environmental Working Group's 2012 Guide to Healthy Cleaning, where cleaners are given a grade from "A" to "F."  I was surprised at the low grades given to products that I considered "green" and by how few products scored an "A."  Making your own products ensures you know exactly what is going into your laundry - and into the environment.

Farm Friday

Since I shared the news of Lola Jane's arrival earlier this week, I'll make Farm Friday brief.

Here's a little pot of parsley that I was getting ready to water:

If you look carefully, you'll see a friend has decided to hunker down in the pot.  I almost watered the poor thing.  I'm not sure whether to call it a frog or a toad as I've read that even experts have a hard time distinguishing between the two.  As always on our farm, we see life everywhere we look.

Have a great weekend,

Poem: Inventing Sin

Inventing Sin
by George Ella Lyon

God signs to us
we cannot read
She shouts
and we take cover
She shrugs
and trains leave 
the tracks
Our schedules! we moan
Our loved ones
God is fed up
All the oceans she gave us
All the fields
All the acres of steep seedful forests
And we did what
Invented the Great Chain
of Being and
the chain saw
Invented sin
God sees us now
gorging ourselves &
starving our neighbors
starving ourselves
and storing our grain
& She says
I've had it
you cast your trash
upon the waters -
it's rolling in
You stuck your fine fine finger
into the mystery of life
to find death
& you did
you learned how to end
the world
in nothing flat
Now you come crying
to your Mommy
Send us a miracle
Prove that you exist
Look at your hand, I say
Listen to your sacred heart
do you have to haul the tide in
sweeten the berries on the vine
I set you down
a miracle upon miracles
You want more
It's your turn
You show me

Wellness Wednesday

Source

Many of us spend hours in front of a computer monitor.  In fact, for a lot of us, the best times for getting personal work done on our computers are first thing in the morning or right before we go to bed.  This article in the New York Times tells us we might want to rethink getting on the computer in the hour or so before we go to bed.  Seems that studies have shown that the light given off by some electronic devices can interfere with production of melatonin, a chemical that helps induce sleep.  Decreased production of this chemical is also linked to a higher risk of diabetes and obesity.  To be on the safe side, consider taking a break from electronic devices in the hour before turning in.

Early Farm News

My regular readers might remember our scarecrow Georgia:

Well, the exciting farm news is that Georgia's city cousin Lola Jane has come up from Charleston for a little R&R and a break from all the busy-ness of city life:

Lola Jane is just thrilled to be here - and glad she can give Georgia some much-needed company.

On Heretics and Traveling the Different Road

Source

After writing yesterday's post, I stumbled upon a quote on a fellow Quaker's blog that fits nicely with my current train of thought.  Often, when a person of faith steps outside orthodox thinking or questions the status quo or criticizes current practices, he or she is considered rebellious and/or heretical and there is an attempt to redirect and re-educate them on the errors of their ways (or beliefs).  However, the following quote reminds us that those whom we depend upon for our orthodox answers were once themselves heretics:

Heresy is the youth of truth.  Orthodoxy is its decrepit old age.  Heresy is thought.  Orthodoxy is habit.  Heresy is initiative.  Orthodoxy is inertia.  Heresy is that which is to be.  Orthodoxy is that which is and is passing away.

Orthodoxy is self-satisfied, and intolerant of heresy.  Heresy is equally self-satisfied, and intolerant of orthodoxy.  The orthodox should think better of the heretics.  The heretics should think better of the orthodox.  For every orthodoxy was once a heresy, and every heresy is fated to become an orthodoxy, for there are successive generations of ideas and institutions, just as there are successive generations of [people] to tell the endless tale of death and life renewed.

All our states were founded by traitors.  All our churches were founded by heretics.  The patriotism of today glories in the treasons of yesterday.  In our churches we bend the knee in cushioned prayer to saints who were once dragged before the tribunals of the orthodox and condemned and hung for their unbelief.  Half of us are heretics.  The other half worship heretics.  Not even the orthodox worship the orthodox.  Every orthodox faith is founded on some old-time heresy.  The [people] who conform to the old never win immortal palms.  History is unanimous in giving first place to those who find new paths, who think new thoughts, who build new institutions, who fund new faiths.

 We all like heretics, only some of us like them alive and others like them dead.

~Herbert Seeley Biglow, The Religion of Revolution (1916) 

On Traveling a Different Road

Source

The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

How many of us studied this poem in school?  A poem that encourages individualism and taking the chance of being the only traveler on a chosen road.  Yet how many schools, governments, companies really encourage us to take the road less traveled?  Instead, we are encouraged to be cookie cutter images, falling lockstep into place and agreeing to whatever the status quo may be in the place you happen to find yourself.  We applaud the trailblazers - after they've become monetarily successful or after they've passed on and their theories/beliefs have been proven right.  But while alive, those who take a different path are often demonized and marginalized.  

There seems to be much fear in just listening to a different point of view, in following someone who is marching to the beat of a different drummer.  What our society needs is a willingness to listen, just listen, with an open mind and an open heart, to those around us who have different points of view or different beliefs without simply waiting for our chance to speak, to show how right we are. 

History has proven that those who take the less traveled road are often the ones who were right in the first place.  And even if they were not necessarily right, they were definitely on the right road.  Let us learn from history and from those on a different road.

Quote for the Day

"We need in every community, a group of angelic troublemakers."

~Bayard Rustin

What About the Animals

My plan to blog about social justice issues hasn't really left the United States.  Although I plan to continue to research and write about social injustices around the world, I'm going to do at least one more post on the US.  

This post isn't about people; it's about animals, livestock animals, in the US.  Although there are strict rules to protect pets from abuse, there are different rules for livestock.  The animals that are raised to become a hamburger, chicken salad, or a sausage biscuit are probably the most tortured creatures on the planet.  Why?  Because they are raised on enormous factory farms.  Contrary to the idyllic farm scenes placed on the packaging for dairy and meat products, animals whose products end up in grocery stores were not raised on family farms.

Rather than go into the details of the cruelty involved in factory farming of animals (and the associated health risks to both animals and people), I'll just share these short clips:



Although I'm a vegetarian, my husband isn't - but he refuses to eat any meat that he didn't raise or hunt himself.  When people tell him, "Oh, I could never eat an animal I knew," they don't realize what they are really saying.  What it sounds like to us is, "I would rather eat an animal that has been abused for its entire life (and pretend it's not happening) than one that has been raised under healthy and humane conditions."  I don't see how one can purport to be an animal lover yet choose to support the meat and poultry industries by buying their products.  Choosing to not know about the horrors of the meat and poultry industries doesn't make it go away.  Choosing to eat factory meat is choosing to be complicit in the torture and abuse of those animals. 

Farm Friday

Some scenes from around the farm this past week:

A mushroom growing next to one of the gardens

Turkeys behind our house

Extreme sustainability - using up the last bit of cosmetics

Look what Amazon delivered to my door!

The turkeys seem to have decided our farm is a safe place since we see them on a regular basis now.  Last turkey season, Bill decided to go turkey hunting and chose to do it on the other side of our farm.  While he was gone, I happened to spy in the pasture behind our house a beautiful tom turkey, with all of his feathers in full display.  Bill didn't get a turkey that day...

The photo of the pencil and bottle show how I take sustainability to the extreme.  I used the eco-friendly eyeliner pencil until it could no longer be sharpened.  The bottle of moisturizer had nary a drop left.

And the books in the photo are courtesy of trading in one of my daughter's textbooks on Amazon.  They will take some trade-ins in exchange for a gift card that is valued at much more than her college bookstore would give her in cash.  So I decided to treat myself to some fun yet practical reads.  I'm now trying to fend off an incredible desire to buy a vintage Airstream to renovate and take glamping.

Poem: A New Poet

Source

A New Poet
by Linda Pastan

Finding a new poet
is like finding a new wildflower
out in the woods.  You don't see

its name in the flower books, and
nobody you tell believes
in its odd color or the way

its leaves grow in splayed rows
down the whole length of the page.  In fact
the very page smells of spilled

red wine and the mustiness of the sea
on a foggy day - the odor of truth
and of lying.

And the words are so familiar,
so strangely new, words
you almost wrote yourself, if only

in your dreams there had been a pencil
or a pen or even a paintbrush,
if only here had been a flower.

Wellness Wednesday

Changes

Source

"To be ourselves causes us to be exiled by many others, and yet to comply with what others want causes us to be exiled from ourselves."

~Clarissa Pinkola Estes

We're one month out from St. Francis Day (which also happens to be my birthday).  I've decided I'm going to spend the next month contemplating some changes in my life.  Some changes I've already made, just haven't made a big announcement about them (and probably won't in the future).  Others have been on my mind for quite some time, I just haven't had the breathing room to do anything about them.  

The last year or so has been filled with lots of activity and milestones.  My husband retired from his law practice and started devoting all of his time to making our sustainable farm work.  I completed my graduate studies and received my master's degree in human services.  Our son became engaged, finished his bachelor's degree, moved out of the house, and got married.  We became grandparents.  Our daughter was home less because she found a job near her university and she just began her last year of college.

One important question I have for myself is, "What am I going to be when I grow up?"  Now that school is behind me (and if I ever say I'm going to take a class or going back to school, tell me I'm crazy), I'm going to explore the possibility of paid employment.  Although I enjoy the flexibility of doing volunteer work, I feel I have more credibility and can do even more good if I devote myself full time to a cause or organization.  Of course, if I do return to the workforce, my goal is to work at a nonprofit organization whose mission I fully support and where I can use my strengths and skills.  But I'm still not sure if working outside the home is the best option for me.

I've just started reading through my old journals.  It's interesting to see where my head and heart were 5 years, 10 years, even 15 years ago.  And it's good to see that I've accomplished some of the goals I had set and where I made important changes in my life.  There are a number of common thread throughout the journals and I need to pursue them, to think about what they mean to me now, and how I can continue to grow as a person and as a citizen of the world.  I'm also going off facebook for the month as I don't want that distraction in my life.  I may or may not come back to it when the month is over.

Some decisions I make I'll blog about. Others will be too personal so I'll keep them to myself, although they might be obvious by the direction this blog (and my life) takes.  Either way, it will be a month of serious contemplation and possibly a new direction in life.

Paper Cup Infographic

I'm loving another infographic.  This one I discovered on the Good Girl Gone Green blog.  It shows the environmental impact of those paper coffee cups that are found at fast food outlets and coffee shops around the US.

Although the original source is a corporation with an agenda (to sell reusable items), I believe it is still a worthwhile graphic to drive home the need to eliminate the waste in our culture.

Quote for the Day

"Religions are kept alive by heresies, which are really sudden explosions of faith.  Dead religions do not produce them."

~Gerald Brenan

Love Wins

Source

For the past ten years, I've lived in a place that is difficult for me.  Whenever I think I've come to accept and/or ignore certain behaviors or mindsets, I realize I really haven't.  Lately, I've been extremely discouraged, especially after the "appreciation day" for a certain fast food chain and by the political demagoguery I've witnessed as the Presidential election draws near.  At our local fast food outlet, I saw what I've been told were well-meaning people, chests puffed with pride, gorging on sandwiches made from tortured chickens and exceeding their daily calorie requirement in one meal (and endangering their health) in the name of "standing up for their beliefs."  It was gluttony at its finest.  Those on the "outside" of this event (i.e., not fundamentalist/evangelical Christians) witnessed this spectacle as nothing less than appalling, as crowds of people went that extra mile to support an organization that would deny basic civil rights to a certain segment of the population.  It was shameful.

And I've started receiving more than the usual number of political "forwards" in my email.  These emails contain false, inflammatory statements crafted to stir up fear in those who are simple-minded and spread by those who neglect to actually investigate the claims.  They make me want to weep.  And I find myself feeling hate and anger towards people sporting certain bumper stickers on their vehicles.  Or I suspiciously eye the people around me when I'm out in public, guessing that they are the kind of people who spread hateful lies or tell themselves that their activities are really "love the sinner, hate the sin" kind of actions.  I'm not feeling the love.

My blogger friend Lisa, of Retro Housewife Goes Green, has also been discouraged.  She has worked tirelessly to bring recycling and other green initiatives to her community, only to see her efforts ignored.  I understand her frustration and feel her pain.  (By the way, if you're interested in sustainability and want to be encouraged by what the younger generation is doing, head over to her blog and follow her.)

When I get to this point of defeat and dispair, I sometimes listen to a song by a contemporary Christian band, the Robbie Seay Band.  I thought I'd share the lyrics here, because  I believe people of any faith background can appreciate what this song says:

Love Wins

It’s a big world, we are hoping
For a big change, we are broken
In the fading light of a dying sun
We cry for redemption

There is hope, there is hope, there is hope
But everyone who’s lost will be coming home
And everything that hurts will be whole again
And love will be the last thing standing

Can’t stop, you can’t stop the seasons
Don’t stop, don’t stop believing
Keep on dreaming of the day when it all will change
Believe in the end, love wins
If you’re waiting for the time when your sun will shine
Oh, look above cause love wins

If it hurts you, just breathe in
When it pains you, just believe in
The radiant light of the morning sun
We can find our redemption

Love is strong, love is strong, love is strong
It's been there holding you all along
Everything thrown away will be new again
And love will be the last thing standing

There is hope, there is hope for my lonely soul
There is hope, there is hope to be made whole
There is life, there is life to be set free
There is life, there is life surrounding me

There is hope, there is hope for my broken heart
There is hope, there is hope for a brand new start
There is life, there is life give me eyes to see
There is life, there is life you have captured me
(Source)

Earlier this week I was reading Teresa Evangeline's blog and something in it really spoke to me.  She talked of small towns and how she once avoided them.  But then she realized "it wasn't the small towns themselves I wanted to leave behind, it was the mindset that seemed to go with them."  That's where I find myself, over and over again, in this small corner of the world.  But her conclusion gave me something to consider.  She found that "the mindset might still exist - in my own small town I see evidence of it with a certain regularity - but I've gotten to the place where it no longer matters.  What matters is the mindset I have for my own life."

So now I'm working on my own mindset, moving above and beyond where I happen to dwell and moving on to the realm of possibilities for me.  To discover that love wins in my own life.